The Drabble Adhesion
by LadyHouston
Summary: A collection of unrelated Sheldon/Penny Drabbles written for LJParadox Challenges. UnBeta'd so if you have any feedback for improvement, please let me know. Continuously being edited. Rating subject to change.
1. The Highligther Catalyst

**The Highlighter Catalyst**

Silence filled apartment 4B as Penny leaned against the counter and sipped her coffee, not yet awake but definitely not asleep. She stared blankly at Sheldon, watching his yellow highlighter move quickly from left to right. He was so fully engrossed in what he was doing and Penny suddenly felt as if she had to do something about that. There's nothing like a cup of coffee and a battle with Sheldon to get your blood going in the morning.

"Watchya doin'?" she asked in a bubbly manner that she didn't actually feel. She was an actress after all.

Sheldon rolled his eyes, but continued highlighting. "I'm reading an interesting and brilliant article which illustrates the improvements of string theory on gauge theory in reference to the Theory of Everything, and I'm highlighting the important information" he stated out of the corner of his mouth. She could detect the hint of annoyance in his voice, so naturally she pushed further.

"What's gauge theory?"

Sheldon sighed. "In layman's terms, gauge theory is used to explain the underlying interactions between quarks and gluons and other subatomic particles."

"Oh. What are quarks?"

Sheldon glared at her. She had him where she wanted him.

"Okay, okay. Sorry." She finished her coffee and plopped down on the couch next to the physicist. She leaned in closer to look get a look at the article. "Hey! It says it's by Dr. Sheldon Cooper, PhD."

"I did say it was interesting and brilliant, didn't I?" Oh yeah, she's getting to him.

"Why are you highlighting everything?"

"Because it's all important," he said through clenched teeth.

Penny leaned as close as she could to the page, so close she could hear his teeth grinding. She then paused for dramatic effect. "What's string theory?" 

Sheldon dropped his article and highlighter and jumped up. "Good Lord, woman!" he squeaked. Penny picked up the highlighter but allowed him to continue. "You have lived across the hall, familiarized yourself with our personal space, insisted on dating Leonard despite warnings of ultimate doom, took pages of notes on Physics lesson I personally imparted unto you…" Penny stood up in the middle of his tirade and faced him. She was standing quite close. Sheldon faltered for a second, but only for a second.  
"…And through all of this you never once picked up on any minute detail pertaining to string theory?" He finished strongly and glared, red faced and out of breath, at his neighbor.

"Nope." Penny said popping the p as she lifted the highlighter and left a small yellow mark on the end of Sheldon's nose.

The apartment was silent once again, but the electricity was deafening.

"You wrote on me!" Sheldon exclaimed. "You actually wrote on me!" His voice was full of shock.

"Correction," she stated matter-of-factly. "I marked you. I didn't actually write anything." She smirked at him, daring him to argue.

Instead he turned on his heel and marched over to his whiteboard and picked up his black marker. At first Penny thought he was going to give her an illustrated lecture on different styles of writing, but his intentions became clear as he took a step toward her. She turned and ran behind the sofa, but his long legs quickly caught up with her. Before she knew it, she was sporting a big black mark on the side of her face.

"You geeky bastard!" She shouted and added another mark to Sheldon's forehead. He didn't even hesitate before writing on her chin. She reached out to do the same to him, but he caught her arm. His grip was stronger than she would have guessed as she struggled to get free. Penny tried to kick his legs, but he anticipated her move and blocked her with his knee. Losing her balance, she tried to grab his other arm to steady herself. On her way down, she marked his forearm and she fell backward, causing Sheldon, in his shock from being marked again, to fall with her.

They lay side by side on the floor out of breath. Penny started to giggle but the laughter died on her lips when she saw Sheldon staring at her, a strange look in his eyes. Silence once again fell over them and they leaned toward each other. Penny looked down at Sheldon's lips.

"You've got something right there," she said softly and brought the highlighter up and drew a yellow line down the middle of his lips. The fact that Sheldon didn't react shook Penny back to reality. "You should probably wash that off," she said as she got to her feet. Sheldon stayed on the floor and watched her as she went quickly back to her apartment.

Sheldon stood up, walked to the bathroom and washed away the yellow marks that peppered his face and arm. He left the one on his lips until last.


	2. The Paradigm Shift

**The Cherry Stimulation**

"I'll have a Shirley Temple," Sheldon told the barkeeper. The man raised an eyebrow at the physicist but continued to mix the grenadine and lemonade and even added a cherry on top before handing the drink to his customer. 

"Way to live on the wild side," Penny grinned at her tall neighbor and took a sip of her martini.

"One must step out of one's own skin, as it were, and try something a little different," he answered.

Penny looked at him with mock surprise. "I'll remember you said that."

They made their way to a small table next to the dance floor. Wolowitz and Koothrappali were dancing with each other in hopes that some "hot, glistening nymph with generous cleavage" would want in on the action. Leonard was nowhere to be seen which was not so strange since he was the man of honor and was probably mingling with the crowd. Penny wasn't sure what the award was for, but Sheldon assured her that these kinds of prizes came a dime a dozen and were given to anyone who slapped the name "physics" on whatever crack experiments they were working on. Case in point: Leonard was awarded one.

"Did you know that cherries were introduced to England by order of Henry the Eighth who first tried them in the Flemish region of Flanders?" Sheldon interrupted her thoughts as he plucked the cherry from the top of his glass and popped it into his mouth.

"Can you tie the stem in a knot with your tongue?" Penny had no idea where that question came from but she chocked it up to curiosity.

Looking off into the distance as if trying to solve some complex equation, Sheldon wiggled his lips and moved his jaw up and down. After a few seconds, he reached up and pulled the cherry stem out of his mouth, a perfect knot tied in the middle.

Sheldon gave Penny a proud, yet innocent look. Penny's stared at Sheldon not so innocently.

**The Temperature Revelation**

101?

Yes, 10freakin1.

That's what it said. Penny sighed and wiped the sweat off of her forehead and willed the little red line on the thermometer to go down. It stayed where it was.

Sighing, she collapsed on her couch and stared at the door. This was the worst time for the air conditioning to go out in the entire building. She was just regretting eating those last few bites of ice cream yesterday when she remembered the popcicles. Sheldon picked up a box when they went grocery shopping last week. She wondered whether or not she should attempt to steal one. A trickle of sweat running down her back decided for her and she grabbed her spare key and made her way to 4A.

When she walked in she saw Sheldon's lanky body standing in front of the refrigerator, his head buried in the freezer. He reminded her of an ostrich sticking its head in the sand and she had to snicker. The sound brought Sheldon out of hiding.

"Well hello, Penny," Sheldon smiled. "Care to have a turn in the freezer? I like to pretend its Hoth and I'm trying to get back to Echo Base."

His childlike grin made her smile even though she had no idea what he was talking about. "No thank you, Sweetie. I'm just here in the hopes of a stray popsicle."

"You're in luck," he answered looking into the nearly desolate freezer. "We have one left. It's orange. I don't like orange."

"Orange is fine for me," she shrugged. Sheldon reached in and grabbed the last of the frozen treats, tossed it to Penny and closed the freezer door. They both then sank down onto the sofa.

"Ugh, I hate leather when it's hot," Penny complained. "It sticks to your skin and makes you feel even worse."

Sheldon looked down at Penny's clothes. "Perhaps if you wore something a little less provocative you wouldn't be in those situations," he pointed out. Penny glared at him. "You're dripping orange syrup onto your hand," he said, unphased.

He watched as Penny turned her head and licked the syrup from her hand. Her tongue slowly ran up the side of the popsicle until she reached the top. He stared at her as she began sucking on the tip, a pool of the sticky syrup forming around her lips.

"Alrighty. I'm going to go take a cold shower," Sheldon said and stood up suddenly.

"Ooh, that's a great idea! I bet the cold water is a great way to battle the temperature," Penny answered brightly.

"Yes. It's because of the temperature," he mumbled and as he turned toward the bathroom, his face began to twitch.

**The Uniform Finalization**

It had been a long day at The Cheesecake Factory and all Penny wanted to do was to get out of her uniform, slip into something comfortable and sleep for about a year and a half. It was because she wanted the sleep so badly that she wasn't at all surprised when she heard Sheldon's signature knock on her door within five minutes of coming home.

"Hello, Sheldon," she sighed putting on a fake smile for the scientist at her door. Her smile faded when she saw her neighbor holding a giant whiteboard and a black marker, a panicked look on his face. "Oh, God, what now?"

"We need to talk," Sheldon said, sounding out of breath. "May I come in?"

Penny considered slamming the door in his face, but the look he was giving her made her curious despite her exhaustion. She stood aside and gestured him in. Sheldon dragged his whiteboard into her apartment and leaned it up against her kitchen counter. Closing the door, Penny made her way across the room and sat down on her sofa facing the board. She waited for whatever monumental amount of crazy he was about to pull out and fill the room with.

Sheldon stood beside the board and faced her. He cleared his throat and addressed Penny as if he were in a lecture hall about to introduce new graduate students to the new and exciting world of theoretical physics. "I have a proposal. I will try to keep it at a basic high school algebra level so as not to confuse you," he stated flatly and waited for a response. When Penny glared at him, he continued, pulling the cap off of his marker and placing it on the whiteboard.

Penny's eyes rolled into the back of her head and she slumped down on the sofa. After he had been at it for thirty five minutes she began to give up fighting off the exhaustion. He continued writing equations, drawing graphs and explaining it all in such a way that if for a second she thought she recognized something, it was lost once he "clarified" whatever it was. She thought about interrupting him several times to ask what the hell he was talking about, but his eyes were bright and his voice so full of passion she decided to let him keep going until he made his point. Besides she needed the sleep.

She woke to sudden silence. Popping her eyes open, she looked over at Sheldon to find him looking at her as if waiting for something.

"I'm sorry, Sheldon, what?" she asked sleepily.

Sheldon rolled his eyes and impatiently put the cap back on the marker. "For God's sake Penny, I just spent the last forty three minutes and fifty two seconds going over this. How could I have made it any clearer?"

"Um, I don't know. By speaking English?"

After sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose, Sheldon took a deep breath calling on all of his strength and the power of God Almighty (his mother would be proud) to give him the patience he was going to need with this woman. "My theory," he gestured to his whiteboard, "posits that you and I have gone through a relationship paradigm shift and in order regain equilibrium, I feel that you and I should…progress."

Penny was giving him her undivided attention. She thought she knew what he was saying, but with Sheldon, you could never be sure. "What kind of progression are you proposing?"

"A romantic progression involving dating, shared proximity and eventually leading to, but by all means not exclusively consisting of, coitus." He sat down on the sofa with his hands on his knees and breathed out as if he'd been waiting to say this for a while and was finally relieved it was done.

"You want me to be your girlfriend?"

"Sure, if you want to be plebeian about it."

Penny looked into Sheldon's eyes and he was looking back at her with a level of intensity she'd never seen from him before. Suddenly, all she wanted to do was kiss him. All thoughts of work and fatigue left her as she closed the gap between their bodies. She looked up into his eyes and he looked hungrily down as their lips met. His body was tense at first, but he quickly adapted softening his against hers as he followed her movements. Her tongue caressed his lips and with only a moment's hesitation he opened his mouth to accept it. As his tongue met hers she grabbed the back of his neck and drew him closer to her, deepening the kiss. Animal instincts took over them both and before long Sheldon grabbed her hips and pulled her up as he leaned back against the arm of the couch, their kiss becoming more passionate. She was on top of him, running her hands through his hair and kissing his neck. He let out a moan and involuntarily his hips thrust against hers causing ripples down her spine and a dipping sensation in her stomach.

As they made their way slowly to the bedroom, Penny finally got her wish to be no longer in her uniform. She threw it to the ground and pulled Sheldon onto the bed as he kissed her neck and chest. Without warning, he stood up and walked over to her uniform, picked it up, placed it on a hanger and hung it on the back of her door. Satisfied, he went back to the bed only to fall into the world that was Penny.


	3. The Roller Coast Adventure

**The Roller Coaster Adventure**

He didn't know why, but he loved roller coasters. All logic suggested that he should hate them. The feeling of being out of control ought to be enough to send him into panic mode. Every other aspect of his life had to be in order; contracts must written, food must be adequately prepared, schedules must be adhered to, bathrooms must be sterilized, couch seats must be saved and friendships paradigms be methodically written out in flow chart format.

However, roller coasters were different. Roller coasters were fun and fast and free and exciting and everything he never experienced anywhere else. Sheldon looked down at the red tracks as the car slowly made its way to the top of the hill. The anticipation of the thrill he was about to experience shot up his spine. His legs shook and he bounced up and down in his seat, a giant un-Sheldon like grin seemingly out of place on his face.

"Don't do that!" Penny shouted at him. "You're going to fall out." She gripped the bar in front of her and her knuckles turned white.

"Highly unlikely," he answered. "We're securely fastened and centrifugal force alone is enough to keep us in our seats most of the time."

Penny didn't listen; she could only feel the blood pounding in her ears. They were now at the peak and were going to fall any moment and she wasn't sure she could stomach it. And then Sheldon's hand was on hers and he was looking into her eyes. Something clicked.

The car sped down the hill and she screamed half thrilled and half scared out of her mind. But his hand stayed on hers.

"God, I love roller coasters," Sheldon thought.


	4. The Betrayal Revelation

**The Betrayal Revelation**

(A/N: I know I'm betraying the S/P ship, but I did it for the points, man. It's always been about the points. Based on Betrayal Trope)

He never thought that it would be her. After all this time, all he has done for her.

He was a mess before she came a long…he couldn't even look people in the eye. And then she came along with her beautiful blond hair and her radiant smile. He remembers berating himself for flirting with her the first time he saw her. He didn't recognize it as flirting at the time, but he knew he was acting too unlike himself for it to be considered acceptable behavior. How was it that he didn't even understand sarcasm that first day he saw her, and yet today he was able to think back and realize he was flirting? From that day on, he tried his best to put up walls and to push her away, but she kept breaking down his barriers, getting closer and closer to him, invading his personal space and his piece of mind.

He thought back to the time when the apartment got robbed. He had gone to her for comfort knowing that she was the only one who could make him feel better after he felt so…violated. It had taken an event like that to snap him out of his quest for solitude and made him realize that he needed someone, that he needed her. When she needed help, he made sure he was the one there to help her. He helped her with her business, and to learn physics and even drove her to the hospital when she hurt her shoulder. And so they grew closer - laundry one day, Halo the next day, spaghetti dinner later that week. Little by little he became closer to her than to anyone else in his life.

Of course he couldn't tell her that. He had other things to worry about. Mankind's knowledge of the very fabric of their being rested in his hands and, gosh darnit, he was going to win that Nobel Prize. But he knew that he could never completely forget about her, never push her out of his life. And so they continued to be best friends. He was her shoulder to cry on, even if it meant snotty t-shirts. She was his ride to and from work and his escape from his own mind.

Yet here he stood in his apartment once again surveying the damage thieves had caused to his personal space. But this time it was different. The thieves were still here. One of them he'd seen before. He was giant and muscular and once took his pants upon a request for a television. The other thief was familiar, beautiful and blond and had her hand stuck in green lantern's derriere.

Sheldon dropped the curry he bought for himself and Penny. He looked at her and meant to ask her why, but nothing came out of his mouth.

"Sheldon, I'm so sorry," Penny started. "We needed the money and…"

The last thing Sheldon thought before fainting was, "but I love her." Then, everything went to black.


	5. The Food Trope Anthology

(A few drabbles based on food tropes)

**The Baguette Beatdown**

Penny and Sheldon walked out of the grocery store, bags in hand. They were having a discussion on different types of bread around the world and arguing about the origin of scones. Penny said that she knew scones were English because her English friend ate them all the time. Sheldon said that he knew scones were Scottish because scones were Scottish. They were heading back to the apartment building when two men jumped out at them and demanded their wallets.

Sheldon shrieked and looked around for help, but the street was empty. He was reaching for his wallet when Penny told the guys to go to hell. The muggers seemed pretty pissed off that some little blond girl was telling them what to do and they took a step forward. Instinctively, Sheldon stepped in front of Penny. She went slack jawed for a moment, but realized that one of the muggers was getting ready to punch Sheldon in the face. So, she did the only thing she could think of. She grabbed a baguette out of one of the grocery bags and hit the mugger over the head with it.

The man stumbled back, more shocked than hurt. The other mugger ran towards Penny only to get a face full of French loaf. Suddenly, Penny started going ballistic, hitting the mugger again and again and again. The man couldn't think of anything else but getting away from this crazy lady with the bread sword. Sheldon, noticing the other man coming closer, grabbed the eggs out of his bag and started pelting his attacker. Between the eggs and the baguette, the muggers decided this couple was more trouble than it was worth and they ran off. Penny and Sheldon stood on the sidewalk, panting and staring after the men until they were sure they were gone.

"I guess you could say we 'sconed' them," Penny said. Sheldon stared blankly at her. "Get it? 'Sconed', 'owned'. Bread…" she weakly held up the baguette in her hand.

Sheldon rolled his eyes, bent down to clean up the mess they'd made and lectured her on the difference between scones and baguettes.

**Just Follow Your Nose**

It was the most wonderful thing she ever smelled in her life. She didn't know exactly what it was, but as the scent wafted from under the door and into her apartment, she knew that whatever it was, she had to have it. Getting out of bed, she walked over the door and opened it. The aroma filled the hallway and she sniffed around hoping to locate its source. It smelled as if it were coming from across the hall. Penny ran back into her apartment and grabbed her spare key. It seemed as if she was floating across the hallway, lifted by the scent like they did in cartoons.

She quietly unlocked and opened the door to 4A. She crept quietly over to the kitchen. Yes, that was definitely where the smell was coming from. Penny spotted a tray of food sitting on the bar. Penny peeked around and saw Sheldon standing in the living room, his back to her and ironing what looked like a beret. Turning back around, she leaned over the food and quietly sniffed while trying not to drool. On a plate sat pancakes in the shape of a little man (was that coconut on the top its feet?) and off to the side was a scone that looked like it could melt in your mouth. She wasn't sure which one of these smelled better. Penny reached out her hand to take a piece out of the scone.

"Don't touch," Sheldon said, sharply. Damn it.

"Just one little bite?" Penny begged. "Come on, Sheldon. Please?"

"No. They're for Leonard."

"Did you make all this from scratch?"

"Yes," Sheldon said as he put the freshly pressed beret over the pancakes.

_Wow_, she thought as Sheldon picked up the tray and walked down the hall towards Leonard's room. _Dr. Whack-a-Doodle, you never cease to amaze me_.

**Erotic Eating**

The five of them were camping out, ready to watch the night sky for a meteor shower. Penny only went with the guys under the condition that they didn't bring any machines or computers or any technology. She wanted to teach them to rough it in the wild. Well, as much as you can rough it and still have a backpack full of Jello pudding cups.

They sat around the campfire and ate their dinner of roasted hotdogs. Sheldon of course complained about the unsanitary use of a stick as a barbecue skewer and he refused to take a single bite. "Let him starve, then," Penny shrugged and they all happily ate their food and sat back to watch the sky illuminated by the meteors.

Raj whispered the details of the meteors and the story behind the shower, which Howard relayed to the rest of the party. Afterward, Raj and Howard went back to their tent and Leonard announced that he was going to turn in. Sheldon and Penny stayed behind, he reading a comic book and she looking through her bag for a pudding cup. Sheldon's stomach rumbled and Penny chuckled.

"Want one?" She asked him, holding up one of the cups.

"Are they properly sealed?"

"I haven't opened any of them."

"Then yes, please." Sheldon took the cup from her hand and then stared at her as if he were waiting for something.

"What?" Penny asked

"Spoon?"

"I didn't bring any," Penny said guiltily.

"Didn't bring an- Penny, what were you thinking? How am I supposed to eat this?"

"With your mouth?" She answered and then licked the lid of her pudding cup.

Sheldon sighed and muttered something about barbarians, but pulled the lid off of his dessert. He carefully and delicately ran his tongue around the inside of the cup, trying not to get any chocolate on his lips. He scooped a dollop of pudding from the middle, again with his tongue and licked his lips afterward. Penny stared at him, slack jawed while Sheldon ran his tongue slowly and deliberately around his pudding cup, his strong jaw moving up and down. As he licked the last of the chocolate out of the pack, he looked up at her and saw her staring at him. He wasn't sure why she was looking at him in that way, but he supposed it was because he hadn't properly shown his gratitude.

"Thank you, Penny," he said softly.

"Yuuhuhwha," she answered.


	6. The Drinking Game

**The Drinking Game**

Penny walked into apartment 4A, a bottle of tequila and two shot glasses in her hand. Sheldon looked up from his computer and watched her with mild curiosity. While his brain puzzled over advanced vector algebraic equations and grappled with the multifarious enigmas of the universe, he somehow had room enough in his assiduous mind to work out that there were only two people in the apartment. That meant that either one of those shot glasses was meant for him or that Penny enjoyed partaking of Mexican spirits two shots at a time. Occam's Razor suggested the former was more likely the case.

"We're going to play a drinking game," Penny answered the quizzical and slightly worried look on Sheldon's face.

"No," he answered, drawing out the 'o' in that way that annoyed Penny so much it made her want to smile. "iWe/i are not. iI/i am going to finish my game of Pac Man before I start my Star Trek: The Original Series marathon. iYou/i are going to go back to your apartment and drink yourself into a state of unconsciousness and not bother me through the entirety of previously stated marathon."

"I was hoping you'd say something like that," Penny stated, an evil grin growing on her face. "You know how you keep begging me to watch Star Trek with you?"

"I never beg."

"Fine. You know how you keep asking me nicely over and over again if I'll watch Star Trek with you?"

"I remember everything."

"Whatever. Anyway, I decided that I will watch it with you."

Sheldon stood up, a boyish smile played on his lips. "Oh, great!" He walked excitedly over to the sofa and picked up a DVD case. "You're going to love this. I recommend you keep an eye on Spock. Without him, the USS Enterprise would probably have crash landed on some sort of deserted planet and the entire series would have been a science fiction version of Gilligan's Island."

"Hold on there, Cowboy," Penny interrupted. "I will watch this with you only under the condition that we watch it with this." She held up the tequila bottle.

"I believe that the fullness of the experience of TOS is best left to the unenibriated mind, but if you would like to poison yourself into a stupor, far be it from me that I should keep you from it." Sheldon opened the case and walked over to the DVD player, placing it carefully in the tray.

"Wrong again! We're playing a drinking game. That means if I have to suffer through whatever the hell kind of geek fest I'm committing myself to, then you're going to get drunk with me."

Sheldon spun around and glared at her. He didn't know why he continued to do that since she never backed down. And sure enough she was gazing at him, smiling widely.

"What's it gonna be, Whack-a-doodle?"

"Fine," Sheldon sighed.

He heard himself saying it, but for all the little genius brain cells roaming in his head, he couldn't figure out why. Penny let out a high pitched squeal that made him want to squirt her with water. He sat down in his spot as she sat in hers. He set up the DVD, pausing it at exactly 00:00 while she poured tequila into the shot glasses.

"What is a drinking game?" Sheldon asked.

"Are you serious? Wow." She wasn't that surprised. If anyone in the world didn't know what a drinking game was, it would be Sheldon. "A drinking game is when we watch something on TV and whenever someone does something that was obviously going to happen we take a shot. So like, if we were playing a drinking game about your life, I'd take a shot every time you went off on some long lecture about, I don't know, the history of forks or something."

"Oh, I see. Like a trope."

"A trope? What's that?"

"A trope, in terms of television anyway, is a common pattern or a repeated convention. For example, every time Bones says 'I'm a doctor, not a fill in the blank' would be a particular common trope within Star Trek."

Penny nodded. She kind of knew what he was saying and was sure he probably got the drift. "Yeah, exactly. So every time Mr. Bones says that, we take a shot."

They discussed the rules of the drinking game, and Sheldon was actually having fun recalling all of the tropes that he had discovered throughout his life of watching Star Trek. The marathon began and shots were taken in between Penny's questions and Sheldon's explanations, which were becoming more and more incoherent by the end of the first season.

When the episode "Operation: Annihilate!" ended, they were both very drunk and Sheldon was trying not to throw up.

"That…that was soooo much fun and you know, the episodes weren't bad either," Penny slurred and made what Sheldon liked to think of as her duck face.

"I know!" Sheldon giggled. "But Penny. Shhh. Penny. I have a confession. This isn't the first time I've played a drinking game," he drawled.

Penny looked at him wide eyed. "It's not?"

"Bazinga!" He shouted and Penny erupted into a fit of giggles. Sheldon looked at her, a big dumb grin on his face and it made her laugh harder. Sheldon started laughing with her, his sharp inhalations of breath mixing with her loud, but endearing chuckles. The fell down to the floor, holding their sides and laughed until tears fell from their eyes. They lay on the floor next to each other, an occasional chortle escaping their lips.

They looked at each other, drunkenly taking in each one another's' eyes. Penny scooted closer to Sheldon, completely invading his personal space, but it seemed that Dr. Cooper was too drunk to mind. She leaned in and kissed him on the lips, a gentle and chaste kiss, which surprised her considering how much she had to drink. Sheldon returned her kiss and allowed themselves to be lost in the moment. They reluctantly pulled away from each other and sank into a comfortable silence.

"Penny," Sheldon said, his voice soft and honest. "Thank you for watching Star Trek with me."

Penny smiled at him. "Thank you for sharing it with me."

They stayed on the floor, next to each other and fell asleep in each other's arms.


	7. In The Back

**In The Back**

(A/N: Betrayal Trope)

War is hell.

At least that's what Penny thought as she and the other four crept through the woods, leaves sticking beneath their booted feet. It had been raining for the past week and the ground was saturated with muddy water. The hot air heated the water on the ground causing steam to rise up. Under their battle uniforms, Penny could feel the sweat trickling down her neck and dripping down her back, seeping through her clothes and causing them to stick to her skin. It seemed like forever ago that she was sitting in her apartment, painting her nails or talking to her friends on the phone. It was a simpler life then.

They'd been walking for what seemed like hours, trying to search for the enemy, but no one was to be seen. She'd asked several times if they were lost, but the others assured her that they weren't. Sheldon went off on some sort of lecture about footprints and tracking and hunting and being trained in this sort of thing and she hated him so much at that moment. She was tired and hungry and it was because of him that they were out there in this sort of heat, no one around for miles (she was sure of it).

She wanted to end this. She could feel her mind slowly slipping away. All of the violence she'd seen and the lack of sleep… She raised her rifle and pointed it at Sheldon's back. She'd have to explain this to the others, of course, but what could she do? She'd blame it on Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome or something like that. Before she changed her mind, Penny pulled the trigger on her rifle and Sheldon went down.

"What the hell, Penny?" Leonard screamed. Penny knew she should feel bad, but she didn't. It was finally over. She wouldn't have to do this anymore.

"How could you do that?" Howard yelled. Raj stared at her in disbelief.  
Penny walked up to Sheldon who lay face down on the ground, warm liquid dripping down his back. She turned him over and he was looking at her.

"You're not supposed to shoot your own team." Sheldon said.

"Yeah, well you were annoying me."

Sheldon held up his gun. "Well, since you've already ruined the game…" He shot her in the chest with his paint gun, a slight smirk on his face.


	8. The Drabble Trio

**The Cactus Exultation**

"Did you have to, like, watch out for cactus and stuff while you were growing up?" Penny asked in a quiet voice as she laid her head on Sheldon's shoulder. They were watching an old western on TCM and the wild west movie set made her think of Texas.

Sheldon wanted to scoff, but he'd learned after she punched him in the throat a few times that if he's going to correct her, he had better do it respectfully. He bit back his remark and decided he'd take it out on Wolowitz or Koothrappali later.

"No. We didn't have a lot of cactus in East Texas. West Texas was a little more like what you see there. East Texas is mostly swamp land."

Penny nodded, feeling her head moving against his shoulder. She thought about how Sheldon was like a cactus plant. When she first moved to Pasadena she was put off by his prickly nature. She couldn't get close to him and you couldn't touch him.

She remembered what she learned about cactus in school and how they were filled with sweet water on the inside and how the plant itself tasted great. Some cactus plants even produced beautiful flowers. Penny liked to think that Sheldon had blossomed into something beautiful. He still had his spikes and if you weren't careful you could get hurt, but she had seen the water and tasted the sweet fruit and she was happy. Sheldon looked down at Penny and gave her a sweet smile and she smiled back.

Yes, she was definitely happy.

**The Barbarian Digression**

"Sheldon Cooper wishes Penny would leave him alone."

She read it, but she couldn't believe it. That rat bastard actually put that as his Facebook status. The part that hurt the most was that he tagged it to her account. Damn rat freakin' bastard.

"That's it," she said out loud, so used to talking into her ever-present headset. Earlier, Penny decided that she'd give Age of Conan a break and try to at least come partially into the real world. But this was a blow. Sheldon 'Annoying As Hell' Cooper wanted her to leave him alone.

Well, screw that. She found her headset and put it back on and loaded Age of Conan once again onto her laptop. It was now 1:13pm and she was sure Sheldon would be asleep. She picked up her phone and dialed his number. She knew he wouldn't be able to resist a ringing phone.

"Hello?" Came a sleepy voice.

"Sheldon, its Penny. I need help getting to the Sanctum of the Burning Souls."

"Penny, can it please wait until tomorrow evening? I have a meeting with Dr. Gablehauser to reclaim the lost computer time that I believe you caused me to lose."

"Come on Sheldon, I just need to get there and then I'll be your best friend forever. Please please please please?"

There was a long pause and Penny thought he had hung up. Then Sheldon sighed.

"Fine, I'll be right over."

Penny smiled in victory.

The next day, when asked why he seemed so tired, Sheldon told everyone he'd been up all night with Penny. He wondered why he was getting strange looks in the hallways and offers of high fives for the rest of the day.

**The Police Box Dramatization**

Penny was in tears. How could they do this to her after she put so much of her time into this? She watched helplessly as Rose slipped away from The Doctor, forever lost in another dimension. Damn those Doctor Who writers to hell. Those two belonged together.

Sheldon rolled his eyes and looked at Leonard. "Why is she crying?" The taller man mouthed to the shorter. Leonard shrugged, not wanting to explain to his roommate why this was such an emotional scene. Although Leonard couldn't really care less if The Doctor and Rose were together in the end, he could see where Penny was coming from. He had to admit that Billie Piper played one of the best Companions and he remembered feeling sad when he first saw this episode a few years ago.

"I just don't understand it," Penny whined through her tears. "If he's a Time Lord, why doesn't he just take the phone booth thingy back in time and keep her from getting sucked into the black hole?"

Sheldon let in a large breath. There were so many things wrong with that sentence; he didn't even know where to start. He gritted his teeth and nearly snarled.

"That's not a phone booth, its TARDIS disguised as a police box!" He was so annoyed with her interruptions that he almost barked the last word.

Leonard gave a warning glance at Sheldon and wordlessly told him to go take a moment to cool down. Sheldon nearly added in complaint that the words 'Police Box' were written right on the front of the damn time machine, but he bit his lip and stalked off.


	9. The Nail Polish Opposition

**The Nail Polish Opposition**

Penny was painting her toenails while Sheldon researched a paper he was writing. He told her that she could use their apartment while hers was being fumigated, but he felt he shouldn't have bothered since acetone fumes were poisoning the air in his living room anyway. He tried to concentrate, but Penny was asking him all sorts of asinine questions.

"What color should I paint my toenails?" She asked.

"Blue," he answered the first color that came to mind, not really paying attention.

"Royal Blue or Navy Blue?"

"Navy Blue."

"I don't think I have anything that goes with Navy Blue."

"Royal Blue, then."

"Ooh, good choice."

Sheldon sighed in slight annoyance as she dug through her plastic bag filled with nail polish bottles.

"Found it!" She said in a sing-song voice that made Sheldon want to hit her over the head with something blunt – not enough to hurt her, just enough to make her stop. He turned his attention back to his work, opening his notebook.

When Penny put her bare feet on the coffee table, Sheldon nearly had a stroke. Penny ignored him and continued painting her nails and hummed to herself. All the twitching and huffing from Sheldon couldn't make her look up.

Sheldon decided to let this one slide. He really had to get to work and he knew that if he told her to stop it would start an argument that could go on for God knew how long. Still slightly twitching, he turned back to his laptop.

"Just don't spill any of it." He managed to get out. He heard a rustling behind him and decided to try to forget she was there.

"You mean like this?"

He shrieked, amazed that she was able to sneak up on him and his spectacular hearing. She was standing over his shoulder holding her bottle of Royal Blue nail polish over his notebook. He watched in slow motion as a single drop of lacquer found its way onto the pages of his work.

After about a minute of thick silence, Dr. Cooper began to chase Penny around the apartment.


	10. The London Dissatisfaction

**The London Dissatisfaction**

It was their honeymoon and she had it all planned out. Sheldon wanted to look over her itinerary and make sure she had organized everything to his exact specifications including alternative activities in case of circumstance or emergency, but Penny shooed him away every time he tried to take a peek at her notebook. She had sketched out maps and charts and in the margins written addresses, directions and phone numbers so that no matter what, they would have an enjoyable time.

The backbone of her plan had included a train ride from the hotel she had booked in Reading, just northwest of London (she purposefully booked a town at least twenty minutes away so that Sheldon could experience the British railway for the first time), a visit to the science museum (she was so glad it was free there), lunch at a café just across from the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral, a walk over the Millennium Bridge to the Tate Modern (she loved art), and boat ride down to Embankment to see the Houses of Parliament (she always wanted to see Big Ben).

But the highlight of the night, the Big Deal, the pièce de résistance was a ride on the London Eye at sunset. Ever since she helped Sheldon with his fear of heights, she'd been wanting to celebrate and this was her way of showing him that they were in this great adventure together.

The day had gone brilliantly. Sheldon nearly had a heart attack when he walked into the Science Museum. He had never been to this particular one, and although to Penny they were all the same, she knew it meant a lot to him. Her favorite part was the walk over Millennium Bridge, where she could see the River Thames snaking along the skyline of London, a city she'd seen so often in the movies, but never imagined she'd see in real life.

Her heart started racing the closer it got to sundown. She started talking excitedly as they crossed the bridge from the Houses of Parliament toward the crowded pier that held the giant Ferris wheel. She revealed her plan to them and although he looked a little nervous, he smiled excitedly and gave her a hug. They walked past the long line of annoyed looking customers toward the Fast Track counter. If Sheldon had taught her anything, it was to always get the Fast Track of anything. She walked toward the counter and approached the smiling lady behind it. She handed the pre-booking receipt to the woman and waited for their tickets.

"I'm sorry," the woman said, her smile still plastered on. "We're having technical difficulties this evening. We will be shutting down the Eye until next week."

Fuck.

"I'll be happy to rearrange your times for whenever's best for you starting from the fifteenth. If not, I'm afraid I will have to offer you a refund."

Penny's world crumbled down around her. This was the one thing she did not have an alternative for. She even planned for an eventual zombie attack after seeing the movie 28 Days Later. But it didn't even occur to her to arrange for a substitute in case they couldn't ride the Millennium Wheel. Tears started to fall down her cheeks when she felt long fingers wrap around her shoulders from behind and strong hands holding her up.

She shook her head. "No, just a refund please," she managed to get out. The lady turned to her computer and Penny let out a long breath and pondered on how it came to be that she would panic when something didn't go according to plan and it would be Sheldon Cooper who calmed her down.


	11. The Hunting Cohesion

**The Hunting Cohesion**

"Now, don't forget about the kickback, Son," her father said with a grin. Penny smacked his arm playfully, a slightly annoyed, but loving look on her face. She appreciated that her dad took the time to bond with Sheldon, but he was being a bit condescending. She had to admit though, as frail and skinny as Sheldon was, the kickback from the rifle would probably knock him into last week.

As the stalked through the corn towards the meadow, Penny thought about how Sheldon was the first boyfriend she ever brought home and how, out of all the tough, burly men (who weren't so far off from her father, she had to admit) she brought Sheldon to Nebraska to meet her parents. Sheldon was delighted when she asked him to come back to her farm. He told her he wanted to see where she grew up. Penny thought it was a bit unusual that he would be so interested in her past, but she learned to take any sort of personal growth from Sheldon that she could. He complained when she told him that her father wanted to take him hunting

The three arrived at the edge of the tall grass, the edge of the pheasants' habitat. Her father took a step forward and raised his gun when he spotted a bird in the distance. In a matter of seconds, a shot was fired and the bird was down. The hound they had brought raced off to retrieve the kill. Next was Penny's turn. Her father taught her to shoot when she was young and using a gun is not something you easily forget. She missed the first two times, but on the third shot she killed one as well.

"Okay, it's your turn now, Sheldon," Her father said softly. "Raise your gun to your right eye and close your left. Take the time to aim, don't go shooting when you don't know what you're – "

The sound of the gun being fired interrupted his coaching. Penny and her father looked at Sheldon and then out to the fields as the dog raced off once again. The corners of Sheldon's mouth were upturned as he lowered the smoking gun to his side. His two companions stared at him in disbelief.

"Do you know where there might be any raccoons?" he asked and Penny knew the next word out of his mouth would be "Bazinga".


	12. The Human Observation

**The Human Observation**

They stood in the graveyard at noon and Penny raised her hand to keep the glaring sun from her eyes. She watched as Sheldon approached the grave of his father and tried not to cry when he knelt to place a football near the gravestone. She didn't know what it meant, but she was sure there was a reason behind it. Sheldon Cooper did not do something for no reason.

As he stepped back he bowed his head and folded his hands together. The voice of his mother rose behind them as she began a prayer. Missy and Patrick (Sheldon's brother) stood beside Mary, heads hanging low. Penny looked at Sheldon almost gasped. There was nothing unusual about him at that moment at least not that was noticeable to someone who didn't know him. But she knew him all too well and what she saw standing there was not the eccentric physicist who lived across the hall and defended his spot on the sofa with almost fanatical devotion. This was a human being, bent but not broken.

Penny wanted to touch his shoulder, to comfort him in his moment of vulnerability, but she stopped inches away. She was reminded of all of those sci-fi movies she was forced to watch over the years. The ones with the giant robots or aliens that wreaked havoc wherever they went, but inside was a tiny little defenseless being who built armor around it to protect itself. She feared that if she touched him, his armor would crumble and he would be left unguarded, exposed and unprotected.

Penny lowered her hand and her head. She felt a hot tear fall from her eye and watched it drop to the grass beneath her feet. In spite of her tears she felt the corners of her mouth turn up and she was glad she got to see the real Sheldon, if only for a brief moment.


	13. The Pants Alternative Contemplation

**The Pants Alternative Contemplation**

Sheldon stared at the glass of wine in front of him in disgust and looked back up at Penny.

"Alcohol?" He asked while he turned his gaze back and forth between the glass and his friend. She was making him even more nervous and his stomach turned as he remembered the night she convinced him to drink some coffee. He looked back down at the wine and looked up at her again. "I don't drink alcohol."

"Fine. Faint." She answered as if she didn't care either way.

Sheldon scanned the offending glass and it did not escape his notice that it had Penny's lipstick on it. He tried to ignore the thought of germs and focused instead on his situation. He could either follow her advice and drink the wine, or faint in front of every dignitary in the hall. When he thought about it that way, the choice didn't seem so difficult. He grabbed the glass before he could change his mind and downed the vino.

A million thoughts ran through his head as the alcohol made its way down his throat. The concept that seemed foremost on his mind was how amazing it was that grapes were so highly prized by hundreds of civilizations for thousands of years just because the berries had the ability to make this liquid that he was now consuming. As he lowered the glass he could taste the bitter flavor on his tongue and wasn't sure if it was worth all the fuss. After all, he wasn't relaxed and now he had this less than pleasant taste in his mouth.

"I don't feel different. This alcohol's defective."

He put the glass down and looked around the table for something else, anything else that could keep him from passing out.

"Here, see if this one works." Penny grabbed another glass of wine from the table and set it down in front of him. She was certainly much more experienced than he was when it came to indulgence in drink and the slipping of one's consciousness into a state of alcohol induced stupor, so he lifted the glass and drank again. He put it back down on the table and opened his mouth to tell Penny she was wrong and that this one didn't do anything either when he began to noticed that his insides felt warm. He looked around the room and noticed that he didn't feel quite so dizzy and that his breathing had slightly slowed.

"Well hell," he thought. "If one glass can do that much…" He grabbed a full bottle of wine from the middle of the table and guzzled half of its contents. "That should do it," he said to himself, but held on tightly to the bottle just in case. He looked up at Leonard droning away on stage. Something about his mother, blah blah blah, and now he was bored. It was his time to shine, it was his award and Leonard was ruining his moment with some stupid crap about lima beans.

"I'm reaaadyy!" Sheldon shouted up to his roommate and he took another swig for good luck.


	14. The XRay Imaginings

**The X-Ray Imaginings**

Penny imagined the room in which they were keeping Sheldon. She imagined him lying on a cold, unloving bed with all sorts of wires and needles and tubes sticking out of him while the doctors looked on, his chest on display in front of a bright lighted backdrop. They would have their backs turned to him, seeing him as a series of grey translucent photographs never holding his hand or telling him that he'd be okay. She needed to be there, to give him this human contact, even if he thought he didn't want it.

For a freaking genius, Sheldon could sure be an idiot. It was always his mouth that got him into trouble. It's what got him fired from his job at Caltech that one time he bred glowing goldfish. It was the reason Amy dumped him after a year of dating. It was the cause of countless arguments and battles of wills between she and Sheldon, arguments she wished she had ended with a touch of his face or a warm embrace to show him that she still loved him even if he was crazy.

If Sheldon had kept his mouth shut, the muggers probably would have let him go and he wouldn't have three bullets lodged in his chest. He would be in his apartment, shaken up, but sitting in his spot eating Chinese food and complaining about how Leonard forgot to ask for brown rice instead of white. Instead he was in there and she was out here waiting for someone who didn't know that they had in their possession something precious, someone that needed to be kept safe, to tell her whether she would ever hold him again.


	15. The SciFi Collection

(A/N: From Paradox's Sci-Fi Prompts)

**The Telepathic Genius Improbability **

"What would you guys do if you suddenly discovered you were telepathic?" Penny asked the boys as they watched a movie and ate Chinese food.

"I guess I would use my ability for good. You know, find out when someone's going to rob a bank or something or set off a bomb and then give the information to the police. Kinda like a superhero." Leonard answered, smiling a proud smile. Penny smiled back even though she thought that was the dumbest use of telepathy.

"I'd figure out how to get you into bed and then use my moves to get you into a place you want to be, you know what I mean?" Howard sleezed. Penny looked at him like she was going to do the same thing to him that she did when she was last in Howard's room. He backed down and looked into his carton of noodles. "You would I was telepathic."

Raj whispered into Howard's ear. "How could you use your power to pick up women when you can't even talk to them?" Howard answered. Raj whispered again. "Look, we've already figured out that your inability to talk to women is based on fear." Once again, Raj whispered. "So, you would be too afraid to send your thoughts."

"He's got a point," Sheldon piped up. "Although I suppose you could still use your abilities to read the thoughts of women."

"What would you do if you could read minds?" Penny turned to Sheldon.

"Telepathy is not just reading minds, it could include the transfer of thoughts or emotion from one person to another, or one animal to another. I believe that the Vulcan Mind Meld would be a good example, if not for the use of the sense of touch." Penny was starting to lose interest, sorry she asked until Sheldon spoke again. "Besides, what makes you think I can't."

Penny smiled. "Oh, believe me. I know you can't."

**The Paranoid Android Compatibility**

Somehow, during the ritual Thai Night, the subject of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy came up and five friends sat and debated.

"Leonard is definitely Arthur Dent," Howard said, his mouth full of Pad Thai.

"Am not!" Leonard answered, picking at his noodles. "I'm not that pathetic."

Sheldon shot Leonard a look that said, 'Oh yes, my friend. Yes you very much are'. But he didn't say a word, he just picked up his fork continued to eat. Although he had been drinking beer, Raj just nodded furiously.

"You're definitely Arthur Dent. And I?" Howard put down his chopsticks and made a sweeping gesture. I am Ford Prefect."

Raj let out a snicker and Leonard smiled. "You are not Ford Prefect. If anything Raj is Ford Prefect." Raj sent a big, cheeky smile in Howard's direction. "No, I'd say you could be Zaphod Beeblebrox."

"He certainly does think with two heads," Raj finally spoke up and both he and Leonard giggled. Penny stared at the group blankly.

"How is Raj Ford Prefect?" Howard asked, offended.

"Well, I'm exotic and fun loving, I have a crazy sense of adventure and I'm not a tiny little Jewish man," Raj answered with a grin.

"Plus, Zaphod loves to party and pick up women," Leonard interjected. "That's something you have in common with him."

"Fine. I'm Zaphod Beeblebrox," Howard admitted. Then he looked at Penny with that look he liked to think of as his 'sexy fun time look'. Penny frowned. "But that means I get the lady. Hello, Trillian."

"What are you talking about?" Penny said, trying to ignore Howard's leers.

"Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," Sheldon finally answered. "It was a series of humorous sci-fi novels written by the late Douglas Adams. It's considered by a vast majority of sci-fi lovers to be pinnacle of science fiction and comedy writing."

"Sheldon is totally Marvin," Raj said.

"Ah yes, the Paranoid Android," Howard added. "Brain the size of a planet and all he managed to do throughout the whole series was complain about things and annoy the hell out of everyone."

Sheldon ignored him and continued to eat his food.

Leonard smiled. "Oh yeah! He is Marvin! Come on, Sheldon, you can't deny that you're at least a little like him."

"I don't know who Marvin is," Sheldon answered.

Leonard frowned. "What do you mean you don't know who Marvin is? He's one of the main characters. He's a central figure! You couldn't have missed him."

Sheldon put down his food and his fork and looked Leonard in the eye. "I've never read Hitchhiker's Guide."

Raj nearly choked on his rice. Howard dropped a chopstick. Even Penny was in awe. Although she had never read it either, she knew it was one of those things that every nerd everywhere should know about.

"You're kidding, right?" Leonard asked, clearly shaken up. He looked at his roommate as if he had just been told that Sheldon had killed his mother. "How coul- Why would- How is it that you have never read Hitchhiker's Guide?"

Sheldon shrugged. "I suppose that it never interested me. While I do appreciate a good science fiction story, the fact that these books continue to draw a crowd of those who are interested in juvenile humor rather than the validity of science through fiction has always put me off. I was too busy earning two PhDs to bother with such things."

"Yeah, he's definitely Marvin," Howard said.

Penny was intrigued. There was something in the world, something related to science and fiction that Sheldon didn't know about. She made a mental note of the title and author. She would have to go by the bookstore and see what this was all about.

***********

Penny had to admit, the books were pretty good. They were a bit strange, but the characters did remind her of the nerds she had grown to love. The plot was going around in so many different directions it was hard to keep up, but she laughed out loud a few times, especially when the Marvin character made an appearance. Sheldon was like Marvin, although it was kind of funny to realize that Sheldon was actually peppy compared to the robot. There's a thought that never occurred to her before; Sheldon was peppy.

She wondered why he had never read this book before. It seemed to have everything he loved - Science, math, action, aliens, spaceships. She found it hard to believe that someone who thought that toilet jokes were funnier with each telling would think the humor in this book was beneath him. She had to admit, though. It was fun knowing something that he didn't know and she was going to milk it for all it was worth.

The next time she saw him, he came to her door asking for a ride to the comic book store. On the way there, she had this undeniable urge to play Radiohead's OK Computer. She turned it to track two.

"Please could you stop the noise I'm trying to get some rest/"

Penny smirked and wondered if Sheldon would catch the reference. She doubted it since he'd never read Hitchhiker's Guide and he didn't know who Radiohead was. Sure enough, when she glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes, he was unphased, staring out of the window at the trees that lined the street. He rocked back and forth along to the beat of the music, probably unaware of that he was doing it. He looked like a big kid, eager and yet unsure of himself as if he didn't quite belong in this adult world.

She remembered the first time he bugged her for a ride. He sat next to her with a silly grin on his face trying to engage her in some stupid game about the elements, trying to connect to her in some way. It was amazing how far they had come in their relationship. She really did love the guy, even if he did drive her crazy. Underneath all of that science stuff and that condescending attitude was a loving, caring wonderful friend.

Penny smiled to herself. No, Sheldon was not like Marvin at all. There was no one, real or fictional, quite like her Whack-a-Doodle.

**The Matrix Disdain**

Penny had never seen The Matrix and she told them so. And of course they all gasped in shock even though they should know perfectly well by now that she doesn't know a lot of things that happen in their dorky universe. And she knew perfectly well that because she had said that, they were going to make her watch it. Probably all of them.

They did. They had barely finished gasping before Sheldon leapt up to the DVD cabinet searching under W for the movies. He searched under W because she knew – she had found out long ago – that he alphabetized his DVD index according to director first, followed by chronology and then title. So the Matrix had some director whose last name started with W. Well, she learned something already.

She decided that there was no way around it and she was going to be stuck her for Lord knew how long (she considered praying that these movies weren't as long as The Lord of the Rings). So she got up to make two bowls of popcorn: one for her, Leonard, Raj and Howard and the other for Sheldon, who had a thing about sharing his food. Freak.

She knew she'd be there for a while, but she couldn't remember how many movies there were in the whole Matrix world. She heard that they even had a cartoon series based on that and hoped that they wouldn't be watching those too. And so she asked the boys just how many movies they would be watching. Sheldon looked at her as if she'd grown two heads.

"Leonard, please explain to her that there is only one Matrix movie."

Penny knew that couldn't be right. She remembered all the hype around the second one and she was pretty sure there was a third one, maybe even a fourth. Her memory was shaky, but she was one hundred percent certain that there was more than one film.

"But I know there are at least two, maybe three films."

Sheldon stopped putting the DVD into the player and stood up, frustrated. "Leonard.." Sheldon said again.

"Sheldon likes to pretend he lives in an alternate universe where everything is the same except that the second and third Matrix movies don't exist."

Penny nodded, finally understanding (as much as she could do when Sheldon was involved). "That bad, huh?" She said, sympathetically.


	16. Baby Got Back

(From the Pimp My Sheldon challenge on Paradox OT)

**Baby Got Back**

Sheldon never noticed Penny before. Not in THAT way, anyway. Although he appreciated her company and would readily admit the importance of their friendship, he never thought of Penny in any sort of sexual light.

That was, until he peeked.

There she was, twisting and turning, trying her hardest to dress herself with one arm out of action. He was supposed to help her, but he feared touching something he wasn't supposed to. He had already cupped her breast and he was deeply embarrassed by that.

However, although he told her that when the hero looks, it never ends well, he couldn't help it. It wasn't sexual attraction or even curiosity that made him do it - it was simply that he was supposed to look. If he didn't, he would be going against a tradition that long stood the test of time. So when he knew her back was turned he slightly opened one eye.

Penny was bent over trying her best to put her legs into her shorts. He had his arms out to catch her if she fell, but he didn't dare touch. His gaze fell on the back of her neck. She was aesthetically pleasing, but he was not aroused. Then his eye involuntarily dropped down to her bottom. It was large, but not overtly so. So smooth, so round. Sheldon suppressed a sigh and realized that he was starting to get warm. He remembered Leonard telling him a while back that he was an "ass man".


	17. Weird Science

(A/N: From the Crack Fic competition at Paradox OT)

**Weird Science**

"Sheldon, what are you doing?"

The sound of Leonard's whiny penetrated his thoughts and caused his eyes to roll in annoyance.

"What does it look like I'm doing, Leonard?"

"It kinda looks like you've set up a secret laboratory in order to create some sort of Frankensteinesque monster."

"Not a bad guess at all," Sheldon was actually impressed with his simple roommates powers of observation in this case. Sure he wasn't exactly right, but one couldn't hold out for too much from Leonard. He was only an experimental physicist after all.

"What I'm doing is creating a woman from artificial DNA. I created a computer program to analyze my DNA and to create a mate that would be perfect for me in every way."

Leonard was shocked. "You can't just play with life like that, Sheldon, this is an actual life form. You can't create a woman for your pleasure and then just throw her away if you don't like her."

Sheldon sighed trying his best to be patient, but there was only so much idiocy one could take before one snapped.

"Leonard, dear friend and colleague, I am not going to dimply create her for my pleasure and then discard her. You should know by now that I do not exist solely for the purpose of sexual gratification." He looked at his short friend, letting him know through his facial expressions that was exactly what he thought was the sole purpose in Leonard's life. "No, I have designed this so that her DNA is so closely linked to what I need that neither one of us will be able to remove the bonds. For all intents and purposes, we sill be 'in love' making procreation more desirable and paving the way for perfect progeny. The DNA will create memories and thoughts and mannerism in her brain that will match with what I will find most desirable in a perfect mate."

If he couldn't argue with Sheldon, he could at least enjoy the show, so Leonard stepped back and allowed his roommate to continue. A large switch, like that in the old Frankenstein movies was on the wall and Sheldon made his way to it, hand ready to create life.

"Today, Leonard, we make history. And might I add, 'Mua ha ha'."

Sheldon flipped the switch. Electrical shocks spewed out from behind heavy machinery and lightening bolted from one particularly ominous looking computer to an empty glass tube in the middle of the laboratory. A glow in the shape of a woman (in a nice shape of a woman, Leonard thought) illuminated from the middle of the glass.

After a few moments of smoke and sparks, cracks and bangs, the machines stopped whirring and the glass lifted from the ground. A woman stepped out in clashing colored clothes (how did she get clothes?). She was perfect and Leonard fell in love. She was the perfect height and the perfect weight with the perfect curves. Her blonde hair curled around her shoulders and down her back, her pink lips puckered deliciously and her large, green eyes had the most magnetic effect.

She walked over to the two men sensuously. "Hi, my name's Penny!" She said with a happy, bubbly and slightly squeaky voice. "I'm an actress from Nebraska. I'm a Sagittarius but most people think that I'm a water sign." She held out her hand for Leonard to shake and he took it enthusiastically.

"Drat!" Sheldon yelled out suddenly, making the other two jump. "I did something wrong. Now I'm going to have to start all over."

Sheldon went back to tinkering with the machines. Leonard looked at his roommate and back at Penny and he knew that Dr. Sheldon Cooper, PhD, was never wrong.


	18. The Moment

The moment Sheldon Cooper falls in love with Penny completely escapes his notice. She's making a complete fool of herself, touching his arm at random intervals, making ridiculous requests and confusing the hell out of him. Wholly oblivious to his looks of utter confusion she begins to sing, from under her gaudy blanket, with a voice that is so very, very awful that it makes him want to curl up next to her and fall asleep in the comfort of her warmth. Then she stops suddenly and looks at him and he looks back at her wondering what in blazes he's supposed to do.

"See, that's where you come in. I'll start over." And she's touching him again, poking his ribs and patting his arm. He breaks eye contact, if only keep from being distracted by the goofy smile on her face. Surely, she doesn't really expect him to go through with this.

But she's singing again and he turns to look at her. She still looks silly with her eyes wide. When she stops he stares at her, mirroring her look of expectation, hoping that she'll continue singing on her own or let him go or pass out on her pillow – but she doesn't. She keeps staring at him and he keeps staring back.

"I've got all night, Sheldon."

As the words float from her mouth, he feels his heart contract, as if she somehow reached into his chest and squeezed it with her bare hands. He looks away again, this time confused as to why his stomach is doing flips and why he can hear his own heartbeat in his ears. He listens for his cue through the pounding and begins to sing with her. With each beat of the song, he turns to toward her and leans forward. His body moves up and down with the words and when they end the song, she is smiling at him and he almost smiles back. Almost.

The foggy edges that formed a frame around her dissipates, his heart rate slows and his world becomes normal again. He brushes the incident aside and pushes his tongue over the roof of his mouth as if trying to place some exotic flavor he had never tried.

Days, months, years pass and everything is normal, as it should be. And when people ask him when he first fell in love with wife, when he first knew that Penny was the one, despite is eidetic memory, he couldn't for the life of him remember.


	19. Multiverses

Sheldon is a firm believer in the Multiverse Hypothesis which suggests, at its most basic level, that there are an infinite number of possibilities within an infinite number of universes. The basis of his work in string theory proposes an infinite number of dimensions within these universes.

His love of science fiction and comic books is not just passing interest, but is based on the possibility that a fictional character, one created by an author or an artist for example, would exist in one of these dimensions. Therefore, according to mathematics, the probability of a fictional character in his universe actually existing in a separate universe is one. If there are infinite universes, then every single possibility exists with absolute certainty. Consequently, assuming that the Multiverse Hypothesis is true, every one of the superheroes that he admires exist in one realm or another.

There is, however, an equal probability (1:1 = 100%) that he was a fictional character created by someone in some parallel universe for his or her own amusement - or possibly for the amusement of an audience. This would certainly explain some of the inconsistencies in his life. For example, he can t for the life imagine why he had a pet cat when he s allergic to cats or why there were no major repercussions for Leonard s can opener prank or his own prank on Kripke.

Of course, given the existence of an infinite number of universes, there is still a one hundred percent probability that the fictional character one creates is in turn created by the fictional character one creates.

And supposing that were true, then there would also be a universe where the Multiverse Hypothesis doesn t hold and reality implodes leaving an infinite number of universes where reality in all universes ceases to exist.

Sheldon continues to stare at his new batman comic, at the same frame he had been gazing at for the past two minutes while all of this ran through his head. He felt the all too familiar pain in his frontal lobe, the throbbing that told him that he was thinking too much again. He felt like one of those robots whose head explodes when presented with paradoxical information.

Leonard once expressed concern for him as they sat at a Caltech cafeteria table, saying that it must be hell inside his head. It was moments like this one that Leonard was talking about and all Sheldon could answer was, At times .

It wouldn t be so bad if this kind of thing didn t happen at least ten times an hour day in and day out, sometimes even in his dreams. Such is the curse of being one of the greatest minds the world has ever seen.

He finally tears away from the comic book, closes his eyes and rubs his temples. He gets up and opens the top drawer of his desk and fishes out a bottle of pills. It s at this moment that he feels sorry for the other Sheldon that lives in a universe where there is no Aspirin.


	20. The Phyicist Dances

"Penny, while I subscribe to the many worlds theory which posits the existence of an infinite number of Sheldons in an infinite number of universes, I assure you that in none of them am I dancing," Sheldon says to Penny and immediately another universe is born from that moment. Somewhere, within some atom that rested between them, a superstring of bosons and fermions vibrated at just the right frequency to create another Sheldon, another Penny and another kitchen in which they stood.

This Sheldon recognizes the shirt she is wearing. Some other Sheldon in some other universe may have ignored it or even not noticed it at all, but This Sheldon realizes that this shirt is a little too long for a certain homunculus who shall remain nameless. As This Penny wiggles to Shania Twain, This Sheldon's heart stops for a second. Her legs are showing underneath HIS shirt. He knows it is his because his sister bought it for him years ago in an attempt to make him look more human. And now, here they are, His Penny dancing around in His Shirt.

The smell of French Toast wafts through the apartment and the aroma carries him into the kitchen to stand right behind her. As His Penny shimmies right and left, throwing toast into the pan, This Sheldon places his hands on her hips and moves in the opposite direction, never shimmying, only rocking side to side to the beat.

"Well, what do you know, My Little Whack-a-Doodle does dance!" his Penny shouts above the music. And they continue to sway together.  
A few minutes later, Leonard comes out and sees his two best friends shaking their hips and dishing up French Toast. He s happy to see These Two getting along.

"Sheldon s having French Toast with us, Leonard."

This shocks Leonard, after all today is Oatmeal day. He wonders briefly if Penny has been trying some sort of behavioral modification experiment on Sheldon.


End file.
